Fifteen years ago the German black metal band Nebelkrähe self-released their debut album entfremdet. Regarding the production of that album, the band have told us, “we were motivated as hell – but we were also completely inexperienced in almost every aspect of producing an album.” And so, although that album definitely found its fans, it left regrets among the band and a yearning to make it better, feelings that persisted even after Nebelkrähe went on to release two more albums in 2013 (Lebensweisen) and 2023 (ephemer).

And so, in a process that lasted 15 months, Nebelkrähe re-worked and professionally re-recorded entfremdet, making the songs true to what the band imagined they should have been. As they explain:

It may seem backward-looking and not very pragmatic to re-record the same old songs instead of new music after a decade and a half – because this much is clear: nobody was waiting for this new recording. But it was a project close to the hearts of the band members involved at the time, and when it comes to music, you should always follow your heart.

We have more info to share about this new version of entfremdet, which will be released on November 29th by the Crawling Chaos label, but our primary mission today is to share with you a video (made by Kevin Opitz) for the re-imagined and re-worked version of the second single from the new album, “Als meine Augen ich aufschlug…“ Continue reading »

On October 27th Crawling Chaos Records will release a new album named ephemer by the Munich-based black metal band Nebelkrähe — their first full-length in a decade. It’s a most unusual album, extraordinarily varied in its sounds and moods, and in its vocals, instrumentation, and melodies, the kind of album in which conventions of black metal are disregarded as often as they are honored.

The band point toward those variations mentioned above in their epigram for the album: “Memories – rainbow bubbles for adults.” (A. Engel) They explain its significance this way:

What sounds kitschy at first can also be read soberly and unromantically: Like soap bubbles that burst to the horror of the naïve child if he or she gets too close to them, even the most dazzling memories are fleeting and ephemeral – or, in German, ephemer.

They also share that the German-language lyrics “tell of blurred boundaries, youth gone by, and shattered dreams of life – as a tribute to the allure and horrors of transience.” Continue reading »